PROGRAMME SUMMARY
Following a pilot call in 2021, the FNR and the Luxembourg Ministry of Agriculture, Viticulture and Rural Development (MAVDR) are again joining forces to put forward a 2nd call for proposals to support policy making and to help the decision-making process.
The joint FNR-MAVDR call aims to support applied multidisciplinary research on innovative resilient and sustainable farming practices and systems in three thematic research fields:
1. Adaptation of Luxemburg’s Agriculture to Climate Change
2. Adaptation of Local Farming Practices to Reduce Nutrient Losses and their Impact on Water Resources
3. Adaptation of Local Farming Practices to improve their Impact on Biodiversity and Related Ecosystem Services in Agroecosystems
Call context
In 2018, the government’s national coalition agreement specified as a major political priority the move towards sustainable, resilient agriculture and food systems. This objective is in line with the environment and biodiversity protection and climate mitigation goals targeted by international agreements such as the Green Deal, the Common Agricultural Policy, the Biodiversity Strategy , the Farm to Fork Strategy and the Nitrates Directive, as well as by the national action plans (PAN for the promotion of organic agriculture).
New strategies and monitoring tools are needed to comply with these national and EU goals. Applied research aimed at policy support and/or direct implementation by the agricultural sector is crucial in order to reach these goals.
The priority area “Sustainable and Responsible Development” defined by the Government as one of the national Research Priorities in December 2019, covers these fields under the priority topic “Climate change: energy efficiency and smart energy management; resilient eco- and agro-systems” with research on “Resilient Water Systems” and “Environmental Monitoring” as important focus areas.
FUNDING SPECIFICS
The budget for this Call is 2 MEUR.
FNR and the MAVDR will support projects for a minimum of 24 and maximum of 48 months. Funding is allocated on a competitive basis up to a maximum amount of 700,000 EUR per project.
Funding is available for eligible research institutions in Luxembourg and abroad.
APPLICATION INFORMATION
The call fosters collaborative approaches between two research teams (either from Luxembourg or from Luxembourg and abroad), whereby the project coordinating institution must be based in Luxembourg.
Projects are expected to adopt a co-creation approach by actively involving relevant actors/potential users of the projects from the beginning onwards. Applicants are further strongly advised to include at least one Luxembourg-based farming advisory service.
Applications must clearly state the expected outcomes and outline a plan/strategy of how the generated project results can be taken forward for implementation by farmers and policy makers.
The call deadline is 27 February 2023, 14:00 (CET).
The Luxembourg-based Principal Investigator (PI) must submit the project via FNR’s Grant Management System.
A event is planned to present the FNR-MAVDR22 call and to promote the meeting and exchange between researchers, farmers and other stakeholders in view of developing collaborative research projects.
Save-the-date Thursday 10 November 2022 at the LTA in Gilsdorf.
Further details will follow soon.
Independent of the planned event, interested parties should start looking as soon as possible for potential collaborating partners in view of developing a joint proposal.[/vc_column_text]
Funded project
Principal Investigator: Kate Buckeridge
Institution: Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology (LIST)
Project partner: University of Aberdeen, UK
Project title: Smart Cropping to Adapt Luxembourg Agriculture to Climate Change (ADAPT)
Project duration: 48 months
Project budget: 598,000 EUR
Abstract
Crops are necessary to feed people. However, growing crops causes soil to lose carbon and emit greenhouse gases. These emissions contribute to climate change and climate extremes — such as drought — and reduce crop yields. The EU and the Luxembourg governments have set strict climate legislation that requires farmers to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Therefore, farmers need methods to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from their fields and make their crops resilient to climate extremes. Policy makers need better accounting of greenhouse gas emissions to guide future legislation.
In ADAPT, we propose to support farmers and policy makers. We propose a smart-cropping management solution to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and protect soil carbon. It will use a practical and feasible combination of cover crops, under sown crops, reduced tillage, and reduced synthetic nitrogen. We will partner with farmers in the north and south of Luxembourg to test our management solution.
This partnership will involve comparing our smart cropping to conventional cropping, maintaining an experiment that diverts rainfall to mimic drought, and analysing soil and soil microorganisms in the lab to understand how our management solution keeps carbon in the soil. The data we collect will be used to calibrate and validate models that can simulate greenhouse gas emissions at the two sites. We will compare three popular models and select the best one, then collect national soil and climate data to scale up the model, to project emissions for all Luxembourg croplands. We will also incorporate regional climate projections to model the future greenhouse gas emissions for Luxembourg croplands.
ADAPT will transfer knowledge into Luxembourg: project partners from the University of Aberdeen are global experts in modelling agricultural soil carbon and greenhouse gas emissions. They will train staff at the Luxembourg Institute for Science and Technology in this valuable skill. Throughout the project, the ADAPT team will disseminate field and modelling results to the farm community.
Finally, improved greenhouse gas emissions maps for croplands will be delivered to policy makers at the end of the project, an important step-change towards reducing cropland greenhouse gas emissions in Luxembourg.
